As the Minister will know, last Friday, his Department published the August homelessness report, which saw a very significant increase in the number of adults and children in emergency accommodation funded by the Department. Some 17,885 people, including 5,830 children, are in bed and breakfast accommodation, hotels or family hubs. Will the Minister outline to the House what he is going to do differently in the weeks and months ahead to stop this relentless rise in homelessness?

It seems to be that the Minister lives in a parallel universe. In the 22 months he has been Minister, homelessness has increased by a staggering 17%, child homelessness is up by 27% and family homelessness is up 29%. The number of people over the age of 65 in emergency accommodation is up 14%. That has not happened by accident. It has happened because of the Government's policies. The targets for social housing are too low and the Government is missing them. It has slashed funding for vital homelessness prevention …

There is nothing in what the Minister has said that suggests he will get ahead of it. In fact, what he is telling us and all of those people out there at risk of homelessness is that the numbers will rise. HAP numbers have reduced but council waiting lists have increased. The Government delivered more new-build social homes last year than the 1970s but since then, the population of the country has doubled and we have far greater social housing need. The Minister talked about protection for renters but he has trashe…

Absolutely not. That is just not true.

We would have funded 2,000 of those this year.

The Minister halved the funding to 750. The Minister is misleading the House.

It does not. I am correcting the record so people have factual information.

It is almost three years since Cabinet, in December 2023, gave approval to the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, to draft legislation to underpin a redress scheme for homeowners and tenants living in Celtic tiger era defective homes. That Minister missed the timelines for the publication and passing of the legislation. Deputy Browne indicated to us earlier this year that he hoped to have the legislation published before the summer and passed in the autumn, with applications open before the end of the …

Tonight, tens of thousands of families will be forced to sleep in defective, and in many cases unsafe, homes. All they want to know is when the legislation will be published and when the scheme will be open for applications. On the basis of the answer the Minister provided to us, given that there are only ten sitting weeks left in this Dáil term, it is unlikely, if not nigh impossible, for the legislation to complete passage through the Oireachtas, which means at the earliest the scheme will be open next year. Can …

Given people's experience of the defective concrete blocks scheme and the interim fire safety scheme, the difficulty is there is nothing simple or straightforward about either. In fact, the Government also took the decision in December 2023 to open the interim scheme. The Minister is correct that 25,000 homes have now been approved but three years on, only 600 homes have been approved and are able to access funding. That means 24,000 homes - these are emergency fire safety works that are to be funded - are still le…

This is a matter the Minister and I have discussed on a number of occasions. When does he hope to bring forward the promised increase in thresholds? As part of that, will he also consider abolishing band 3, which leaves a number of counties, particularly rural and western seaboard counties, in an exceptionally disadvantaged position, even with an increase? Can he also give the House an update on his Department's consideration of index-linking social housing eligibility thresholds to some sensible index in the futur…

For every week or month that passes before a decision is made on this matter, a significant number of people will lose their position on local authority housing waiting lists. I have constituents who became homeless from their HAP tenancy, went into emergency accommodation and are marginally above the thresholds of my own local authority. Because income is now reassessed for eligibility as part of the annual review, they were removed for the social housing waiting list. They lost nine years on the list. They have n…

Absolutely.

I thank Deputy Hearne for introducing this important legislation and giving us an opportunity to debate it this evening, although I have to say that there is a terrible sense of déjà vu . For 12 years, the Oireachtas and the wider public have been debating the need for a constitutionalised right to housing. In fact, so exercised was the then Government about the matter that, in 2013, it asked the then Convention on the Constitution to deliberate on a number of economic and social rights. The report was published in…

The tenants in local authority and approved housing bodies social housing stock impacted by defective concrete blocks have been waiting a very long time for this scheme. I have to say that, like its parent scheme, the Minister is making an absolute mess of it. The defective concrete blocks scheme is itself defective. The Minister should talk to homeowners in Donegal, Mayo, Clare and Fingal. They will tell him it is not 100% redress. They will also tell him that they are spending tens upon thousands of euro to fill …

The abuse and trauma suffered by women and children at Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork city is not a matter of history. That suffering is hardwired into the present day lives of survivors and their families. It also echoes in the memory of those who never made it beyond the high walls and wrought iron gates. The decision to grant planning permission to a private developer to build apartments on the site of the home was appalling, utterly disgraceful. Understandably, it was met with real anger, disgust and …

I welcome the Minister's acceptance that the survivors and their families need compassion. However, what they need more urgently is a decision from Government. They have waited long enough and have fought far too hard to get where they are. Their ask is very clear. There is no ambiguity as to what they want. They do not want this building to go ahead. They want the State to acquire the site. They want a proper investigation and excavation of the land. Crucially, they want the site preserved as a site of national co…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." The idea behind the social housing passport is a very simple one. It allows people on local authority housing waiting lists or in receipt of social housing supports like the housing assistance payment, HAP, and the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, to be able to move from one local authority to another and to take their years on the list or on transfer list with them. It was a long-standing commitment of Fine Gael, the Labour Party and, indeed, until recently, the …

The Minister of State is confirming to the House that they do not currently apply to HAP or RAS tenants currently. That is the position.

That is just factually correct.